IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2024-73.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Does the Beveridge Curve Tell Us about the Likelihood of Soft Landings?

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Any assessment of the likelihood and characteristics of a soft landing in the labor market should take into account the current state of the labor market and the likely dynamics in the labor market going forward. Modern labor market models centered around the Beveridge curve are a useful tool in this assessment. We use a simple model of the Beveridge curve to investigate what conditions are necessary for a soft landing in the labor market to occur and what the likelihood of these conditions was during the height of the pandemic-period inflation. We find that a soft landing was a plausible outcome at that time. Since then, the evolution of the labor market has borne out that prediction.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Figura & Christopher J. Waller, 2024. "What Does the Beveridge Curve Tell Us about the Likelihood of Soft Landings?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-73
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2024.073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2024073pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2024.073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    2. John Sabelhaus & David Johnson & Stephen Ash & David Swanson & Thesia I. Garner & John Greenlees & Steve Henderson, 2014. "Is the Consumer Expenditure Survey Representative by Income?," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 241-262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. repec:wop:calsdi:97-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Giuseppe Moscarini & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2017. "The Relative Power of Employment-to-Employment Reallocation and Unemployment Exits in Predicting Wage Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 364-368, May.
    5. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John C. Haltiwanger, 2012. "Recruiting Intensity during and after the Great Recession: National and Industry Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 584-588, May.
    6. Garey Ramey & Wouter J. den Haan & Joel Watson, 2000. "Job Destruction and Propagation of Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 482-498, June.
    7. Michael W. L. Elsby & Ryan Michaels & David Ratner, 2015. "The Beveridge Curve: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 571-630, September.
    8. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
    9. Ben Bernanke & Olivier J Blanchard, 2023. "What caused the US pandemic-era inflation?," Working Paper Series WP23-4, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    10. Alberto Cavallo, 2024. "Inflation with Covid Consumption Baskets," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(2), pages 902-917, June.
    11. Regis Barnichon & Andrew Figura, 2016. "Declining Desire to Work and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 449-494.
    12. Hie Joo Ahn & James D. Hamilton, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Unemployment Dynamics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 554-569, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher J. Waller, 2023. "The Unstable Phillips Curve: a speech at the Macroeconomics and Monetary Policy, a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, March 31, 2023," Speech 95912, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Guénette, Justin Damien & Kose, M. Ayhan & Sugawara, Naotaka, 2022. "Is a Global Recession Imminent?," MPRA Paper 114627, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Verbrugge, Randal & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "The hard road to a soft landing: Evidence from a (modestly) nonlinear structural model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    4. Huixin Bi & Chaitri Gulati & Jose Mustre-del-Rio, 2022. "A Slowdown in Job Vacancies Is Likely to Coincide with Higher Unemployment and Slower Wage Growth," Economic Bulletin, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue August 10, pages 1-4, August.
    5. Randal Verbrugge & Saeed Zaman, 2024. "Post‐COVID inflation dynamics: Higher for longer," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 871-893, July.
    6. Lee, King Fuei, 2023. "Is Singapore’s Beveridge Curve Suffering From Long Covid Shifts?," MPRA Paper 117841, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hie Joo Ahn & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2023. "The Dual U.S. Labor Market Uncovered," NBER Working Papers 31241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Daniel Borowczyk-Martins & Etienne Lalé, 2016. "The Rise of Part-time Employment," SciencePo Working papers hal-01311976, HAL.
    3. Thorleifsson, Oskar, 2021. "Unemployment Dynamics in the Nordics : Is there Heterogeneity in the Relative Importance of Ins and Outs?," Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers 22, Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers.
    4. Hie Joo Ahn & James Hamilton, 2022. "Measuring Labor-Force Participation and the Incidence and Duration of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 1-32, April.
    5. R. Jason Faberman & Andreas I. Mueller & Ayşegül Şahin & Giorgio Topa, 2022. "Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non‐Employed," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1743-1779, July.
    6. Lalé, Etienne, 2016. "The Evolution of Multiple Jobholding in the U.S. Labor Market: The Complete Picture of Gross Worker Flows," IZA Discussion Papers 10355, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    8. Euiyoung Jung, 2021. "On the design of labor market programs as stabilization policies," PSE Working Papers halshs-03243698, HAL.
    9. Kuo Chun-Hung & Miyamoto Hiroaki, 2019. "Fiscal stimulus and unemployment dynamics," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-19, June.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7arg7blugi9b2o08qjafcpg8e2 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Forsythe, Eliza & Wu, Jhih-Chian, 2021. "Explaining Demographic Heterogeneity in Cyclical Unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. Régis Barnichon & Adam Shapiro, 2024. "Phillips Meets Beveridge," NBER Chapters, in: Inflation in the COVID Era and Beyond, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Yuelin Liu, 2022. "How structural is unemployment in the United States?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1258-1276, July.
    14. Mueller, Andreas I. & Spinnewijn, Johannes, 2023. "The Nature of Long-Term Unemployment: Predictability, Heterogeneity and Selection," IZA Discussion Papers 15955, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Euiyoung Jung, 2021. "On the design of labor market programs as stabilization policies," Working Papers halshs-03243698, HAL.
    16. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 2019. "Unemployment, Marginal Attachment, and Labor Force Participation in Canada and the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 399-441.
    17. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7arg7blugi9b2o08qjafcpg8e2 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Jackson, L Fraser & Khaled, Mohammed S, 2018. "Employment participation, unemployment and non market work: Composition models of the United States labour force," Working Paper Series 20312, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    20. Nikolaos Kokonas & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2020. "The Ins and Outs of Unemployment in General Equilibrium," Discussion Papers 2014, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    21. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7arg7blugi9b2o08qjafcpg8e2 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Christopher J. Waller, 2022. "Responding to High Inflation, with Some Thoughts on a Soft Landing: a speech at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) Distinguished Lecture, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, M," Speech 94280, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    23. Hie Joo Ahn & James Hamilton, 2022. "Measuring Labor-Force Participation and the Incidence and Duration of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 1-32, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor market; Unemployment; Soft landing; Beveridge curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-73. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.